mother mary/blessed virgin mary swap

about 3 months ago i had the brilliant idea to host this swap and to host it as hand drawn. i am so glad i did. watching the most beautiful cards ever roll into my house has been such a treat. some people have the wildest notions of what mother mary looks like and i love it! although i was raised catholic i am no longer practicing, nor do i even consider myself to be a christian. my spirituality runs more along the lines of earth/goddess based crossed with hinduism, taoism, and buddhism . BUT i still have a thing for the blessed virgin. she was a prominent figure of my childhood and she represents an earthly aspect of jesus. beyond all this, mary art is simply stunning. growing up in arizona there are images of her as the virgen de guadalupe everywhere. so i challenged 30 0ther artists to join me in making art of her and in her honor. what's more, i got my mom, dotsdots on atcsforall.com, to join in. mom is a fabulous artist and she, along with others did not let me down. below you'll find a piece i did for the swap along with one of mom's. the one mom did is based on a photo of her mother, my grandmother. enjoy!

mine:


mom's:

new art

i belong to willowing's world of whimsy (silly name, i know--but she's fun!). i took her online course and added new techniques to my repertoire which is always a plus. there are several other things one can participate in on her website and art trading is one of those things. every month you can be paired up with another person and make them 2 atc's, one is based on a theme (this month was abstracts) and the other is whatever you want to do. my partner this month is a woman named evangeline from canada. i think her art is a lot of fun, so i look forward to seeing what she makes for me. below you'll find what i've made for her. the abstract, entitled 'blue bliss' was initially intended to be just a background, but when it was dry i thought it looked incredibly lovely and didn't want to cover it up. it was made with a collage of ephemera and acrylic pain, with a gold border.



the other card is entitled 'beg' and it is made with my new favorite technique: stamping funny heads and attaching them to bodies that obviously don't match. i always have fun doing this! i then add a word that sometimes makes sense and sometimes doesn't, i'll let you decide on this one!

Japanese Accordian Moleskin Round Robin

Moleskin makes these awesome journals called Japanese Accordion. They are approximately 3.5 x 5.5 and the pages are folded in such a way to look like an accordion. You can pull all the pages out into one long page. Which of course, makes them ideal for mail art.

I am involved in 2 round robins, one over at www.atcsforall.com and one at their sister site www.illustratedatcs.com. The theme of my moley on the AFA swap is 'art as a spiritual journey'. So each person in the swap will get a chance to do a 4 page spread on that theme. In return I will do a 4 page spread on each of their themes, which are: mermaids, home is where the heart is, houses cats or quotes, found poetry, and what makes your heart soar. This book is almost done--just 2 people to go!

On iATC's we are just getting started on our journey. Journals are to be mailed to their 1st destination on August 1. My theme for this book is 'dark goddess'. The other themes are: naughty burlesque, the space between you and me, open theme but with loud bright colors, mondo bizarro, fantasy steampunk airships in the sky, big beautiful rubenesque women & forbidden fruit, and empowered women writers. The challenge for this round robin is I can only create art in the division I was accepted onto iATC's for. Which means I have to keep hand drawn work to a minimum (no more than 30%) and rely solely on collage and mixed media techniques. As you can probably guess this may represent quite a challenge!

The 1st challenge was to get my own 3.5 page spread done to offer inspiration to the next artist. I present it here:



I have a few lasts tasks to make my moley ready to hit the world. I need to create an introduction spread which contains directions regarding my theme as well as a travelogue. The back of the moley contains a pocket in which i am going to enclose handmade envelopes for each artist. Each envie will contain a thank you gift and in return i as that each artist stick a little something back in there for me. Not art necessarily, but possibly a leaf or a pebble from a walk, or a bus ticket or a snippet from the newspaper. I'd also like each person to sign and date their envelope.

I'll keep you posted on how and where my little moley travels to!

Rolo's!

In the mail art world keeping addresses of your trading partners can be quite the hassle. I don't know how many times I have asked the same person for their address. Not too long ago I gave into the rolo fad. What's a rolo you ask? It's a rolodex card (the 3x5 variety) that has been decorated front and back and has your trading partners address on them. A clever and arty way to keep track of addresses. Since I am new to rolo's I only have a handful--but they are gorgeous! Some people have several rolodex's worth! People have even gone so far as decorationg their rolordexes. My rolodex is of the vintage variety, so I am not going to decorate it. The creativity people have shown with both the cards and the holders is flipping amazing! Here are a few cards I have made for other folks:





Here are some awesome rolodexes by folks at www.atcsforall.com:

By BlueEclipse:


By LisaB:


By Adriayna:


By BigKay:

I'm Back and Full of Longing

It's been a long 6 months or so that I have neglected this place. My apologies, life and art and kitties got in the way. And well, frankly, I've also been damn lazy.

To start Atticus is much better and no new hospitalizations have been needed. he is on urinary tract health kitty food and doing well, as is his sister Elke.

Art wise I have been a busy beaver! In April I applied to a juried art trading site, www.illustratedatcs.com, and was accepted. It was scary to apply as I had been turned down from their sister site, Mail Art World (which is now defunct), 2 times. I thought for sure I wouldn't get in. But with the help of my friend EraserQueen, I was accepted. The site used to just be for hand drawn and painted mail art, but has since opened up to collage and mixed media artists. It's been a pleasure trading there. My art snob self is happy to be trading for work that is at my skill level. I encourage anyone that has some level of skill to apply. The folks there are super friendly and the swaps are fun. The gallery is filled with the most amazing eye candy! Here's are a couple of pieces I did for a skinny book swap there:



I was also invited to participate in an invite only trading forum with some amazing artists called Amusing Muses. I can't tell you who plays there but it's a great group! Here are a couple of pieces from swaps there:



As for the rest of my life things are...OK. I received my evaluation at work and it went well. My boss created a new category for me called 'Creativity and Communication' and gave me an outstanding in it. That felt really good. In March I participated in The Hoffman Process. I will use another post to talk about that, but it had a beautiful impact on my life. Despite these good things I feel as though something is missing. Some part of me is not fulfilled and longs for so much. And I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Keep me in your thoughts.